Knowledge and the meaning of human life
pp. 377-391
in: , Rethinking knowledge, Berlin, Springer, 2017Abstract
Not only knowledge plays a central role in human life at all levels, from survival to improving the quality of life, but, since antiquity, several people have claimed that knowledge is the purpose and meaning of human life. This chapter maintains that this claim is unjustified, and that all attempts to show that human life has a purpose and meaning from an external and higher point of view are bound to be unsuccessful. Human life has indeed a purpose and meaning, but only from an internal point of view. As it has been widely held since antiquity, this purpose and meaning is happiness, which however does not consist in knowledge. On the other hand, even if happiness does not consist in knowledge, knowledge is a precondition of happiness.